Dodgers Acquire Michael Young

UPDATE, 12:08 AM, 9/1/2013: Per Jayson Stark, the Phillies will receive left-hander Rob Rasmussen, a 24-year old starter. Rasmussen was a second-round draft pick out of UCLA in 2010 by the Florida Marlins and has made a number of pit stops since. Rasmussen went to the Astros system as the centerpiece of the Carlos Lee deal that sent him to Miami. Rasmussen was then traded to the Dodgers this off-season for John Ely. Rasmussen had a 2.40 ERA through 11 starts with Double-A Chattanooga in 2013 and was promoted to Triple-A Albuquerque where he struggled mightily, posting a 6.34 ERA in ten starts. Rasmussen returned to Chattanooga for four appearances, three starts, where he posted a 3.00 ERA while averaging nearly a strikeout per inning.

Young joins the 79-55, first-place Dodgers and could siphon most of the third base playing time away from Juan Uribe, Nick Punto, Luis Cruz, and Jerry Hairston and become the Dodgers’ regular third baseman. Uribe has actually had a terrific year, worth 2.8 fWAR hitting 7 HR with a .268/.326/.395 line with 12+ runs saved on defense. Young is not a clear upgrade over the over-achieving Uribe and it is unclear what role Young will have.

The link didn’t open for me, so I can only o on what you said here. Saying the Phils got less than they gave up for Young is out of my territory, but I did see where Bonilla only gave up 15 hits in 30 innings at Frisco, and has been quasi consistent at < a hit per inning. K rate has been pretty decent as well. So your point may have merit. But believe me, I am guessing.

I guess an equally fair way of looking at this is was the 5 mil spent on Young, maybe 6ish well spent. If you point to the positives he contributed, even net minus the negatives, the answer's probably more yes than not. But at the end of the day the play at 3rd wouldn't have been much better, but Fransden and the money spent elsewhere had a good chane to be a better play.

The irony of the departure yesterday was it was the same day that on the pre game show, Ricky Bottalico supposedly gave Young an A for his year. At least some people noticed Young made some level of contribution. Why he continues getting crushed on balls to his right is weird. To his left, he's not far from an average defender, and if you can accept his offensive limitations, he can still be an asset to a lineup.

On balance, Michael Young turned out to be an asset to the team (not to be confused with Delmon Young). I suspected he would be a good clubhouse presence but he also played better than most expected (disregarding some frustrating ground-outs into double plays). An argument has been made by many that Frandsen could have filled the role better than Young which is probably true but the team was thin at 3rd, thin on the bench and thin at first at the time of Young’s pickup.
I wish we could have picked up the signing rights to a couple of raw and unknown18-year-old prospects at any positions for a guy like Michael Young (who will very likely help the Dodgers in their run) and bypassed the permanent double A reliever types that seem to be a common and worthless commodity to parent clubs.

@wbramh, MY was overall an average-ish hitter, but his defense was pretty bad. If you believe the defensive metrics (and based on both his past history, and the eye test, I would), overall he was not an asset on the field.

Maybe he added so much in the clubhouse that he was an asset somehow in spite of his on the field play, I just find that very hard to believe.

Schmenk: I also weighed in to that equation the fact that the team was not committed to bring up either of their rising 3rd base prospects when they were considering Young and the FA pickins were thin at that position. To me, Michael Young was a smart pickup who produced as expected in the field and maybe above expectations at bat. As for how much his professionalism helped in the clubhouse and dugout, who knows? But better teams have self-destructed from bad attitudes and bad chemistry.
Conclusion: A good guy who was never expected to burn up the league or become a gold glove but covered a need and played to the best of his current ability. What more can you ask of the guys you’ve got? I’ll take a Michael Young over a Delmon Young every day of the week. Or a Rollins over a Papelbon – somebody proud to wear the red pinstripes.

IMO- When assessing these subsequent deals, people often forget to include the production the player gives you in between transactions. That’s worth something. 1.4 oWar according to BBRef. He hit 8 HR’s, 42 RBI, and .276/.336/.395 – These are not all star numbers but they are more than nothing and should be figured in I think, to properly assess the value of the total worth obtained, along with the two deals, no?

Plus, I thought they might let him walk for nothing and that would have been worse.

Unfortunately, the 1.4 of oWAR is more than offset by the -2.4 dWAR leaving him at -1.0 WAR for the season. So, in summary, they paid ~$6M for below replacement level performance from Young, then traded him for what appears to be less than what they traded to get him. Not good.

hk, After typing that comment, I anticipated this response since you and I have gone back and forth on this since the deadline. I am just glad that he was eventually traded as I began to doubt that would happen!

So I started thinking what their other options were.

In the winter of 2012-13, the choices for third base prior to the Young trade were
Placido Polanco who can’t hit .250, or stay on the field, and despite his great fielding, has a minus War of -0.7 (BBRef) this season, should we have signed him again?

How about Ty Wigginton, the man with hands of stone and an OPS of .431, and -0.8 this season before being dumped by the Cardinals?

We could have just used Kevin Frandsen, he’s a good hitter (and one of my personal favorite Phillies), but his defense at third was questionable at best in 2012, and with a UZR of -1.1 in 33 games part time at third this year. I doubt that he would have brought positive results for a full season.

But hey, there’s always Michael Martinez, he can play third decently, if you don’t mind a guy that cannot hit at all.

Maybe Pedro Feliz is out there looking for work, or Wilson Valdez?

So, let’s add these items to the “in summary”. Look friend, I’m no RA Jr. apologist. I did not like his approach to the job in his first four years. But I’m hoping as of last offseason that he is learning patience and the value of analytics on the job, because with the Manuel decision, it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere, anytime soon.

One option that they could have pursued was signing Eric Chavez to platoon with Frandsen. Another would have been to just go with Frandsen on the cheap, keep Bonilla (and Lindblom) and spend the $7.2M doing a better job at another position.

Well free agency isn’t the only way to acquire players – in fact, it’s the least cost effective method to do so. Most players are nearing the end of their prime years the first time they become a free agent – so you’re paying inflated dollars for production that the player had in his previous organization.

The Cardinals should be the model organization in this case. Most of their 25 man roster is home grown. They only use free agency as a supplemental method of player acquisition – to fill in an occasional hole.

Their draft position has been just as bad as the Phillies over the past decade, yet they continue to have two or three productive players advance to the majors each season. I know some changes have already started, but I wouldn’t be opposed to a complete overhaul of the Phillies scouting and development organizations.

hk, I’m sure there were many other options. And by mentioning the other players my intent was to compare the options at hand to the one they ultimately chose, Michael Young. All I mean to say is take all these factors into the formula first before just saying he cost them these two good players ( I would argue that Lindblom is not), and they let him go for this one bad player that we haven’t even seen yet. We got 5 months worth of equity out of Young and he performed as well or better than the options at hand.

It’s sort of like buying a house 20 years ago, and selling it for less than you think you should get for it, – but you also lived in it for 20 years, and maybe your kids grew up there, maybe you were able to take loans on the home that helped pay for other things you own. I’m asking that all things are taken into account when assessing these two transactions, you see?

Lastly, and I think this is important. Brian Cashman denied the deal and so did RA Jr., who called Heyman’s rumor false if memory serves. Since when did we start putting all our faith and belief in John Heyman? His track record of predictions isn’t exactly sparkling. He may have called a few right, but they all get lucky sometimes. How do we know there even was a deal to be made that included the Yankees paying 5 million dollars?

Again, no apologies for RA Jr, his track record ain’t too sparkling either. I just want the deals evaluated fairly. Michael Young gave the Phillies a pretty good offensive year while playing third base no worse than all the other players I mentioned.

I didn’t bring the supposed Yankees deal into the equation because (a) I don’t know if the offer was real and (b) I have no idea if Kahnle > Rasmussen. I do believe, based on what I’ve read, that Bonilla > Rasmussen.

Stats to consider (using baseball-reference.com’s WAR, which you used in your original comment):

1. Young accumulated -1.0 WAR in 512 PA’s for the Phils this season.
2. Frandsen has accumulated +0.7 WAR in 209 PA’s this season.
3. Since WAR is a counting stat, the extra 303 PA’s that the Phils gave to Young instead of Frandsen added 1.0 WAR to Young’s total.

Based on the above, it would take a big leap to believe that Young turned out to be a better option than Frandsen would have been if they had just stuck with Frandsen. Further, we can’t ignore the opportunity cost of giving up Bonilla and $7.2M for 5 months of Young and Rasmussen. Therefore, using your house analogy, to me it looks like this:

* You paid a lot of money to move into a new house (Michael Young) while you continued to own, but rarely use, a perfectly good and comparable house (Kevin Frandsen).
* You lived in the new house for a number of years during which it provided a worse quality of life (worse neighborhood, worse school district for the kids, etc.) than the other house that you continued to own, but rarely used.
* After that period of years, you sold the new house for less than you paid for it.
* You passed up the opportunity to live in the original house and spend the money that you spent on the new house on other items that could have improved your quality of life.

The entire Michael Young ordeal is a big X in the loss column for RAJ.

looks like a good move reguardless if we received what we paid for him. We got a quality ng LH reliever to throw in the mix of possible relievers for next year. Good Move , Ruin Tomorrow.I mean Ruban Amaro

It’s always better to get something for a guy like Michael Young, instead of just letting him walk in FA for nothing. I know very little about Rasmussen, but it looks like he’s pretty much the same type of guy the Yankees were offering at the deadline.

But to me, that’s still good. I like when Amaro chooses to be patient. I jumped all over him about being impulsive a few years back. But after last off season, and this trading deadline, maybe he is learning that there is value in patience. This apparent new approach has not helped the team yet, but I think it will in the long run.

Just as a matter of practice, I prefer that our GM does not make moves out of urgency or impulse, but out of preparedness and thoughtful planning. I could be totally wrong, but it looks to me that this is what is happening over the last year or so.

Good luck to MY. Class individual that I can and will root for to get his ring. Just like Raul last year with the Yankees and Thome with the O’s. They never got theirs but there’s nothing wrong with hoping that guys like that do.

As for the trade itself, I agree with Lefty that patience by Amaro is a good thing. Still not forgiving him for letting Charlie go the way he did but that’s old news and it’s time to move on.

I have to disagree. Charlie Manuel did not cause the team to tank in 2012, injuries did. It’s surprising to me that the team finished at .500 with the personnel on hand.

2013 he was also given nothing to work with. Even LaRussa couldn’t get performances from the trash in the Phils’ bullpen, and when your bench options are guys like MiniMart, McDonald, Mayberry, and Quintero, with RF manned by D.Young, your offense isn’t going to produce.

It won’t really be until next season until the team takes a new direction; that’s when Manuel should probably have been dismissed, in my opinion. Even if they chose to let him go early, timing the firing just as he was supposed to celebrate his 1000th win wasn’t very considerate.

I will however agree that the timing of his firing or whatever it is being called this year was, was wrong… it was too late in the season to make a change, it should’ve been made at the all star break or sooner, but I understand them wanting to see what ryne could do I suppose… undoubtedly though it was time for a change…

Schmenkman, He swept the Atlanta series at the end of the season allowing the Cardinals in the playoffs, instead of throwing those games. The team won 102 games but he should have poisoned his players breakfast to stop them at 99. He also should have cut Howard’s achilles on 3-0 in the 7th inning, instead of on his next AB. And most important, he should have had a hit put out on Chris Carpenter before game 5.

Lefty, this b.s. about letting Atlanta win that series so the Cardinals wouldn’t get into the playoffs is …well …just that…. B.S. If a team that wins 102 games in a regular season can’t beat ANYONE in the playoffs, then they don’t deserve to advance. Period.

That’s right Chuck. Especially since they had an 8 game losing streak ( I think it was 8) just a week before and needed some positive momentum going into the playoffs. I’d always rather see a team storm into the playoffs than – back in.

P.S. – You understood that the whole comment was sarcastic I hope. Sometimes I’m not very clear when I do that. I wish there was a sarcasm symbol on the key board.

Lefty, completely agree. Also, the sarcasm came in perfectly clear. Some blogs have symbols you can use that will change the font to indicate sarcasm. Otherwise, an “/s” is sometimes used at the end, in cases where not everyone may get and you want to make it clear.

Schmenkman- I’ll remember to use “/s”, thanks, I like that. Maybe my meaning was easy to interpret this time, but I’ve had problems before with that in the past, and usually it’s my fault. I forget sometimes that people can’t see my body language or facial expressions.

If you were there, observing communication skills and all that good stuff and saw a pretty glaring problem of sorts, there might have been grounds to make a managerial change at the all-star break. But on the surface, limited view that fans have, it scents of utter stupidity to think Charlie should have ben removed at the all-star break. The ballclub had just won like 10 of 14 against the Braves and Nats, maybe the White Sox included, and were 6 out, and with the unfortunate looming shadow of not being too good a team, in the race, somewhat outside position that it was.

Tough schedule, losing Brown, no doubt other factors made the timing of the switch pretty sensible. Especially since Charlie’s rightful attitude conveyed if you’re gonna let me go, let’s do it now. Truth is, with a better roster, which likely isn’t happening next year, he might still have been a decent choice for next year. But axing him at the ASB seems utterly stupid.

Now having said that, this statement about making a move after 2011 is not as stupid as reactions based on the 102 and all that make it at first glance.

If memory serves correctly, Charlie was finishing a contract, and a fresh voice with whatever the appropriate changes should have been to reduce age might have made at least some sense. Charlie gets a sometimes unbalanced view. The people aspect of his work gets awfully favored. His tactical decisions get overly criticized. But I have no doubt he’s a knowledgeable baseball guy. Job preservation is overrated. Gold watches are a 1 in a million these days. Charlie ran a great ship from ’05-11, but that has so little to do with the new point in future history. Maybe keeping Charlie, and the way Ruben “should have” built the roster for ’12 and ’13 at the same time isn’t as idiotic as it seems.

I’m GLAD he was around, I like the guy and think overall, he’s pretty if not extremely capable.
But with the advantage of hindsight, if Rube had built the roster better, which means differently, (no small task), it’s entirely plausible that a different voice might not have been a terrible idea..